Amended Petition to the EPA on the Proposed Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases

Title

Amended Petition to the EPA on the Proposed Endangerment Finding for Greenhouse Gases

On October 5, CEI petitioned EPA to reopen its Endangerment Proceeding because of a disclosure by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that it had destroyed the raw data for its data set of global surface temperatures. In our view, this destruction of data was a major breach of scientific standards. It warranted a reexamination of the studies based on that data, and a reopening of the comment period to allow public response to this issue.

EPA has not responded to our petition.

In the past two weeks, however, new information has surfaced which casts far greater doubt on the validity of CRU’s work. In the view of many, this information destroys CRU’s reputation entirely. Yesterday, CRU director Dr. Phil Jones announced that he was stepping down from his position temporarily while the university conducts an investigation of the released material.

On October 5, CEI petitioned EPA to reopen its Endangerment Proceeding because of a disclosure by the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) that it had destroyed the raw data for its data set of global surface temperatures. In our view, this destruction of data was a major breach of scientific standards. It warranted a reexamination of the studies based on that data, and a reopening of the comment period to allow public response to this issue.

EPA has not responded to our petition.

In the past two weeks, however, new information has surfaced which casts far greater doubt on the validity of CRU’s work. In the view of many, this information destroys CRU’s reputation entirely. Yesterday, CRU director Dr. Phil Jones announced that he was stepping down from his position temporarily while the university conducts an investigation of the released material. CRU Update (Dec. 1, 2009), http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2009/nov/homepagenews/CRUupdate

PURPOSE OF THIS FILING

The purpose of this filing is to put EPA on notice that new information has very recently been released, whose content is so grave that it may well destroy EPA’s basis for an Endangerment Finding. At a minimum, it requires EPA to reopen this proceeding and engage in a full examination of this information, accompanied by public comment. If the new material is serious enough to have led to the departure, at least temporarily, of CRU’s Director, then for that same reason it justifies EPA’s reopening this proceeding.

CEI will submit to EPA a more detailed examination of the new information shortly. However, given the possibility that EPA may be on the verge of issuing its final decision, it is important that this agency be formally notified of both the existence of this information and the fact of Dr. Phil Jones’ departure from CRU.

THE NATURE OF THE NEW INFORMATION

On Thursday, November 19th several thousand emails and documents from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University became available for download from the Internet.

The released information is voluminous. It consists of more than 157 megabytes of data, including over 1,000 emails and 3,400 other documents. Its contents are still being analyzed, and will be for some time to come, but a number of things are apparent. There were conscious efforts by leading climate scientists to misrepresent or falsify data, to evade FOIA requests, and to inject intentional bias into the scientific peer review process. There were also admissions in these emails that global warming largely ceased in the last 10-15 years, despite public claims that it was continuing.

In addition to the emails, sections of annotated computer code from programs used to process climate data were among the revealed documents. The annotations by programmers indicate that the programs were written in such a way as to artificially adjust the data to meet their needs.

This new information casts grave doubt on the body of research underlying EPA’s Endangerment Proposal, and may well entirely destroy the basis for EPA’s proceeding; namely, the major assessment reports of both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP).

74 FR 18,894 col. 1.

A zip folder containing the files may be downloaded from these two locations:

In addition, CEI is today filing a CD containing the data with EPA’s Docket Center.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, EPA should immediately suspend any action it is about to take on an Endangerment Finding, and reopen this proceeding for an investigation of, and public comment on, the newly-released information.